The Laughing Stock
by Balletfuxk
Summary: Not all jokes are funny. That was the lesson, and Harleen Quinzel would learn it the hard way. Joker x Harley Quinn. Does not follow the Mad Love story.
1. Prologue

**Note:** I wrote this prologue almost a year ago, and have been stuck ever since. But I've finally got my creative juices flowing again, so I figured that I'd give it one more try. I guess I could warn you guys about the Joker/Harley relationship in itself (not for those of you with those pesky little things called 'morals', that's for sure), but instead I'm going to warn you that this isn't going to be the usual Joker/Harley fanfic. I've got a story all my own for them, and it doesn't follow Mad Love.

Now would be the best time to kill myself before I go on to horribly butcher my universal OTP, but I'll leave that up to you guys.

**The Laughing Stock – Prologue**

Gloved fingers drummed against the desk in a tuneless rhythm, dark eyes skimming the pages, seeing words but not registering their meanings.

He was bored. Gotham was boring without Harvey Dent in the papers or on the news; not even Batman was fun. Since he had been wrongly deemed the Public Enemy, Gotham was seeing less and less of him. He was still there—the Joker knew this—but he was lurking now more than ever. The Joker needed someone new to play with.

He had considered picking a random civilian (unbiased, unprejudiced chance as Harvey would say), but that wasn't good enough; most civilians in Gotham had nothing going for them. He wanted someone happy and pleased with his or her life. Someone, perhaps, from the Arkham staff. Arkham, home of the crazies and otherwise not-so-common man. His first thought as he pondered this idea was Jeremiah, the big man himself—but Arkham was miserable on his own.

He grumbled inherently—and laughed, because he sounded like the Bat—as he shifted yet another reject aside. The Arkham staff all looked miserable, not an enjoyable one in the lot. He turned his attention to the files listing the interns. As he flipped through, a certain name caught his eye and he faltered. His scarred lips twitched upwards, and he lifted the sheet of paper.

"Quinzel." He let her surname roll from his tongue, and it sounded as though there were three syllables instead of two. The young intern was smiling in her picture—really smiling, not just the unpleasant smirk on the faces of every other member of the staff.

_Harleen Quinzel_. He laughed.


	2. Chapter 1

**Note:** _This_ is the part that has been giving me trouble. I won't even try to remember how many times this has been re-written. I've been completely blank ever since finishing the prologue to this fanfiction ages ago. Oh, well. At this point I'm just desperate to have it over with. I would like to apologize in advance to the other Joker/Harley fans. I'm not _trying_ to butcher the fandom, honestly.

Oh, and hooray for obscenely short chapters and horrible, forced writing! I still really hate the first part, but it's taken me long enough to write this chapter, and now I want nothing more than to just _move on_. So, you get… this.

**The Laughing Stock – Chapter One**

Blood-red smiles and sinister words circled her head. She didn't see the weapon, the fingerprints, the stage – she saw everything else, noticed the miniscule details. His socks were off, defiantly thrown in the corner behind the door (_he hated sleeping with his socks on_) and his trousers were still on the floor where he had left them upon missing the hamper. These things were normal, and so she thought of them. The smiles painted in red and the letters written over her mirror in lipstick were abnormal and horrifying. They were to be avoided at all costs.

She forced herself, however, to stare at _him_. She saw the dark stains on his clothing, and the puddle that had formed around his shoulders and head. Blood was still flowing from the wound. Maybe, she mused morbidly, it was syrup, and this was all just a joke. She giggled shortly, high-pitched and unstable. A joke – this was just a joke. The blood wasn't real; the body wasn't real; the entire situation was fake, fake, fake.

Turning, she began to fumble through the vanity drawers and smiled as she twisted the top off of a bottle of red nail polish. She began to paint over the glass, over the lipstick and the blood. Realizing that it wasn't working, she tipped the mirror back and let the polish pour out. Laughing quietly to herself, she smeared it with her hands and spread it as much as she could. _Red, red, red, red, red, red_, she sang in her head. _It's all just a joke._

A pause, a sudden jolt back into reality, and then_ Oh, God, what am I doing? No, no, no. This is real. This is real… _She could smell it suddenly. She could smell the blood. Her head swam, the room spun, and she clutched her stomach instinctively—protectively—as she collapsed.

---

The first thing to register was the cold metal beneath her cheek, and the unusual sounds assaulting her hearing from all directions. There was too much shouting. She was tired. This wasn't her apartment, she realized, and her eyes flew open. The first things she saw were the bars. This wasn't right. She sat up, trembling, one hand always resting on her stomach, and was properly horrified to realize that she was in a prison cell.

"She's awake!" a male voice grated somewhere to her right, and two men rushed towards her cell.

"Where—?" she began, dropping the question. She knew exactly where she was. A dark-haired man with a mustache and glasses fumbled with a set of keys, and as soon as the door opened the two were leading her out. The first man to speak joined them, and she stayed silent as they repeated her rights to her. She knew her rights. And if they knew her by now—and she assumed that they did—they would also know how unnecessary it was.

"Harleen Quinzel, you are being held in custody as a suspect in the murder of Guy Kopski."

_Oh, God. _She stared at the cop blankly, horrified. She hadn't done it. How on Earth could they think that she had killed him? She _loved_ him. She wouldn't have hurt him. She wouldn't have killed him. They were wrong.

"I didn't do it," she said blankly. She sat up straight, shoulders back, and tried to put up her firm psychiatrist-front. "He was my fiancé. I loved him." She glanced pointedly down at her stomach, where her hand still rested. "We were happy, so there was no reason for me to kill him. I _didn't_ kill him." The more she spoke, the more choked up she felt herself becoming. Her eyes were starting to burn, and she soon found herself fighting back tears. "Oh, God, it wasn't me. Please. It wasn't me."

The one with the mustache sighed. "Miss Quinzel, from what we've gathered so far, all signs are pointing to you. Besides Kopski's, yours are the only prints to be found _anywhere_ at the crime scene. Your prints are the only ones on the _weapon_."

She paled at this, and looked down. How could that be? She hadn't done it. How could hers be the only prints? They'd make a mistake. They had missed something. That was the only explanation. Or, was it possible that she was being framed? She didn't know of any enemies that Guy had—he'd been a good man, and a good psychiatrist. Guy had been the one to spark her interest in the field. She didn't know of anyone who would want to kill him. She didn't know of anyone that would want to frame her for the murder, either.

"It wasn't me," she repeated quietly, very aware of the helpless look on her face. "Please…"

"I'm sorry, Miss Quinzel. The investigation is still ongoing. Of course, we may soon find something else, but for now we have to keep you here."

She looked down, trembling, and a hand was awkwardly placed on her shoulder. She tuned out the conversation from thereon out, ignoring them as they talked amongst themselves. She saw them shaking their heads and listened quietly as they talked about another promising mind at Arkham being lost. Frowning, and somewhat disgusted by their blindness, she was escorted back to her holding cell.


	3. Chapter 2

**The Laughing Stock **–** Chapter Two**

His interest in her case lasted long enough for him, and the rest of Gotham, to discover that she was convicted of murder in the first degree. She got more publicity than he'd expected, but he supposed that he had underestimated the public. It would seem that everyone _did_ love to see perfectly good doctors go nuts. Just take Crane, for example. As far as Gotham City was concerned, Harleen Quinzel was now no better than her former colleague.

He hadn't expected things to go quite so smoothly, either. He was slightly disappointed, actually—it had been an easy case, with few doubts or second thoughts. Everyone was absolutely positive that Harleen Quinzel had murdered Guy Kopski. He heard it mentioned that the cops were sure that he'd been having an affair with one of the other doctors at Arkham, but scoffed at the flimsy excuse for a motive.

Ah, Gotham City—where everything is possible, nothing is as it seems, and a few crooked cops go a long way.

- - -

She couldn't believe it. She simply couldn't believe it. Her vision was blurred slightly and her head was pounding, but she could not force herself to sleep that night. Her thoughts were spinning wildly, out of control, running away with her—how could she have been convicted? Nothing made sense anymore.

Not that that was a particularly foreign idea, though—nothing had made sense in Gotham City for as long as anyone could remember. But her life had been _normal_, or at least as normal as it could get living _here_. And for the past few months, she'd watched it fall apart, thread by thread, until the pressure on her sanity was so intense that she might snap at any minute. She knew that she wouldn't, though. She couldn't, because she still had one thing left, and even though they'd take it from her in due time, she had it _now_, and nothing else mattered.

Harleen laid a hand on her stomach, smiling slightly, and found comfort in knowing that he would be with her for a while longer. Most women looked forward to the time when it would finally be all over, but she was different. She was dreading that day. She didn't have a chance of keeping him, not in here. They'd take him from her. She'd be alone.

Lethargically, she rolled out of bed without necessarily wanting to. This had become a ritual of sort—every so often she would stand and move about, just to _do_ something. Sometimes she would walk to the sink and wash her hands, or look at herself in the reflective sheet of metal meant to pass as a mirror. This time she veered towards the toilet, frowning. She hadn't been feeling well the past day or two, not enough to complain about but enough that it was bothering her regardless. Her stomach hurt, first of all; it was like she was experiencing cramps, but cast it off as an effect of the pregnancy. And there was the nausea, which she also thought was probably due to the pregnancy.

It wasn't until the following week, when the bleeding started, that she realized the full extent of what was occurring. Harleen had stupidly cast all other symptoms aside as normal side-effects. She hadn't even considered... how could she have _known_?

They noticed her eventually. She was refusing to leave her cell, remaining curled on the cot with her arms wrapped protectively around her stomach. She fought them when they came to bring her to the mess hall, telling them desperately that she couldn't go, she couldn't leave him, she couldn't let him leave _her_. It wasn't until a guard noticed the bloodstains on her clothes and the sheets that they began to seriously worry about her condition, physically as well as emotionally. It was obvious even to them that she knew what was happening within her body.

Eventually she simply gave up the struggle, and with red eyes and a wet face, allowed them to take her to the hospital. After the procedure was complete, and she was watching them carry the small, lifeless, blood-covered boy–a _boy_, she could have had a _boy_–that the despair truly began to take its toll. She did everything in her power to get him back from them: she cried, she screamed, but kicked and fought and _bit_, but it got her nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.

Nowhere, also known as Arkham Asylum. The inmates howled and gawked and laughed as they watched her, Harleen Quinzel, being led down the halls by two orderlies. What had once been the enemy was now on _their_ level. She was _one_ of them. She would be playing their games now, their way.

She passed Jeremiah in the hall. He watched her, disappointment obvious. He reached out, laid a hand on her shoulder for a brief moment before she shrugged it off and picked up her pace.

"You were one of us, Harleen."

_I still am._


	4. Chapter 3

**Note:** Finally managed to finish this. I'm very sorry my updates take so long and usually end up being so short, but I hope that the chapters will get longer as I start really sinking into the story. With school and other such activities (life, don't you hate it?), my time for writing is a tad sporadic. I'm sorry to the few people who care about this fanfiction; I don't mean to disappoint!

Something tells me that TLS will start bearing new meaning to me now. As most of you probably know by now, actress Brittany Murphy passed away just before Christmas. Just a bit of a random fact, but when I write my Harleen, I see Miss Murphy. Always have, always will. It was crushing to me to lose not only one of my inspirations in acting, but also the primary inspiration for my Harley. Rest in peace, Brittany.

**The Laughing Stock ****–**** Chapter Three**

His arrival was nothing short of a nightmare for all involved. He only half-heartedly fought the orderlies surrounding him, and the expression - regardless of how you identified it - on his face made it clear that the struggle was a game to him. He would squirm because it made them squirm. He was like a child with a magnifying glass, and Arkham was his anthill. He was having the time of his life, playing with the psychiatrists they sent to him. He led them to believe that they were making progress with him, and when he was bored, he tore them apart (mentally, of course; he wouldn't want to stain those pretty, sterile white floors) and was handed a new toy.

By this time, he had forgotten all about _her_. As far as the Joker was concerned, Harleen Quinzel was an ant that had already been burnt. He hardly remembered her when he passed the wall of glass separating them. It took one glance, then another, before he even knew that he had seen her before. He was more absent-minded and moody during the session that day, and when asked by the doctor what was wrong, gave some unintelligible response about _Déjà Vu_. A sorely irritated psychiatrist dismissed him after almost an hour of his uncooperative silence, and as the orderlies led him back to his cell at the heart of the Asylum, he passed her again.

She was sitting cross-legged on her cot, matted flaxen hair pushed back behind her ears as she pored over her empty left finger, pulling and rubbing it as though something was missing. Something clicked, and he began to laugh. She looked up quite suddenly, as if she could hear him through the glass, and their eyes met for a brief moment. He knew her then, remembered her name and how she had looked, months earlier, soundly asleep as he had tied the wires on her wrists and ankles to make her dance. He hadn't had nearly as much fun as he could have with this particular toy, he decided. Why stop here? The dance was only just beginning!

His laughter echoed throughout the halls of Arkham Asylum as he was pulled away from her cell, laughter that would come to define not only the asylum, but the inmates and the psychiatrists as well. It would come to define Gotham.

- - -

Despite all efforts, Harleen simply could not shake the sense of uneasiness that had come over her upon seeing him that day. He had looked at her - that fact alone could frighten anyone - but it had seemed more like he was looking through her. His dark eyes had captured her, and for that moment she hadn't been able to breathe. It was surreal, the sudden realization that he was no more or less human than she was. She had seen him on the news, experienced the terror during his time running free, but she had never been so much aware of the Joker as when he was standing directly outside of her enclosed little world, staring her down with a smile on his face.

It bothered her throughout the next day, and she was unable to shake the thought of him even during her session with Joan Leland. Harleen considered mentioning him, but thought better of it the moment she entered the room with Joan, waiting quietly for her across the table. The ebony-skinned young woman smiled, reminding Harleen of when they had been friends rather than doctor and patient. She returned the gesture awkwardly, succeeding in only an unpleasant twist of her lips.

"How are you today, Harleen?" Joan asked as Harleen slid into the chair opposite of her, nodding and muttering something unintelligible. It was awkward for both women, the professional barrier that was forced up between them. There had been a time when Dr. Leland had been 'Jo' and Harleen had been 'Harley', and it was equally painful for the psychiatrist to sit across from her former friend as it was for the patient to be sitting there.

"You've been doing well, I hear." Leland's optimism was clear. She firmly believed that Harleen's was a case that could be dealt with, and Quinzel herself saved. Unlike the vast majority that made up Arkham Asylum, she was positive that Harleen could be fixed and restored to who she was before she had snapped. Harleen herself had little motivation to move from where she was. She certainly knew that she did not deserve what had become of her, but after losing Guy and - she couldn't even think it without breaking down; her eyes began to burn slightly, and bit back the urge to cry- _the baby_, Arkham was all she had left. Even if that meant being an inmate, she could hardly imagine herself anywhere else.

"As well as ever," Harleen mumbled monotonously, instigating a sigh from Leland. There was a wall between them now, and any attempts at restoring the old friendship seemed useless. Joan Leland was a doctor and Harleen Quinzel was her patient, and there was nothing more to it than that.

- - -

Approximately an hour later, an orderly was leading Harleen back to her cell. He opened the door, deposited her inside, and she watched through the glass as he left. Turning her back on the door, she trudged to the far corner and was about to settle into her usual sitting position on the cot when she caught a glimpse of something sticking out from beneath her pillow. She seated herself on the edge of the mattress, lifted the pillow, and tentatively picked up a playing card.

_Two of Hearts._

Turning slowly, Harleen made her way to the glass that gave her a view of the hall outside, but saw no one roaming freely who might have left it. Certainly it hadn't been an orderly, but who else would have access to a cell? A frown creased her forehead, and she strode back to her cot and lifted the mattress. The card was slipped away out of sight, and she sat back down, legs crossed, staring aimlessly in contemplation.

Briefly, the Joker's smile flashed in her mind, and an uncontrollable shiver ran through her. She had been aware of his habit of leaving cards with clues as to where he would strike next, or as a type of calling card. However, as far as Harleen knew, he only left Joker cards. That didn't explain why there was a Two of Hearts stashed beneath her mattress. On top of that, she couldn't begin to fathom why he would leave her a playing card, even if it _had_ been the Joker. The idea that he had been in her cell seriously disturbed Harleen, more than she could have managed to express.

_It's nothing_, she told herself, repeating the phrase in false hopes that she would find comfort in it. _Maybe should mention it to Dr. Leland. Possible that someone is able to leave their cell. Joker? No, that doesn't make sense. He's maximum security. Not possible._

Harleen heaved a sigh, thin hands running through her messy blond hair as she tried to make sense of the card and, assuming the Joker had singled her out, why he might have done so. She could feel herself unraveling more and more each day at Arkham, and the sudden mental pressure brought on by the idea that she was being paid close attention to by the Joker of all people was grossly unsettling.

Harleen Quinzel the ambitious psychiatric intern would have taken this as a challenge and a thrill; Harleen Quinzel the unstable inmate was absolutely horrified and appalled.


End file.
